Dr. Smith received the B.S.E.E. degree from Tufts University, Medford, MA, in 1967 and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in applied physics from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1968 and 1972, respectively.

From 1972 to 1975, he served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University and also as a part-time Research Associate and Instructor at Northeastern University, Boston, MA. In 1975, he joined the faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.